How would you improve the IJN?

Historical what if discussions, hypothetical operations, battleship vs. battleship engagements, design your own warship, etc.
Djoser
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How would you improve the IJN?

Post by Djoser »

We've started on the British and the Germans, how about the IJN?

One of the areas I would say would have been most profitable would have been a somewhat less stringent selection process for pilot training. One of the biggest problems the IJN faced was the fact that after the attrition of the first 6 months heavy fighting, the availability of skilled pilots was significantly reduced. And the situation only went downhill as the war progressed. Certainly the zero had its faults, but the extremely high kill ratios obtained against it, to greater and greater extent as the war progressed, were probably due as much to the huge discrepancy in numbers of hours of flight training of the IJN vs USN pilots, as to any other single reason.

Saburo Sakai was certainly able to do much better than the vast majority of the poor IJN novices in the later war, even against many more opposing USN pilots flying better planes. Even if the telling of his experience as described in Samurai is biased (I'm not sure of that, just saying--any nation's pilots' memoirs are going to run that risk), the fact he survived some of those missions he flew against outrageous odds at all is testimony to his skill in the use of a machine he knew very well.

I don't know what could have been done in the 30s to somehow increase the oil reserves, I doubt that would have been easy to do, if it was possible at all. But anything at all would have helped. For that matter this goes for the Kriegsmarine and the late war Luftwaffe as well.
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Re: How would you improve the IJN?

Post by lwd »

The IJN was designed around giving Japan the greatest chance of winning the "Decisive Battle" that they possibly could. However there were some serious holes in some of their plans to accomplish this as well as the fact that said battle never occured. If they make the decision early on that they aren't going to win a major battleship action and fully realize the capability represented by aircraft carriers there are a number of things they can do.

1) As you've stated relax the standards a bit and up the training rate for their pilots. Increasing the capablity to produce additional planes and pilots once the war starts is also useful.
2) When they bow out of the Washington treaty leak the stats on the proposed Yamatos. At the same time cancel them and put some of the resources into more carriers planes and pilots.
3) With the decision that the "Deciseive Battle" is no longer the be all and end all the need for the long lance goes away. An oxygen torpedo may still make sense but a 21" one that has a shorter range is probably going to be more useful. The cruisers don't need reloads either. This will allow them to carry more torpedos on their DDs and possible put some additional arrmor on their cruiser turrets.
4) Some of the resources saved from not building the Yamatos should also go into ASW. They need better teck and more dedicated planes and escorts as well as improved tactics.
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Re: How would you improve the IJN?

Post by Tiornu »

By far the most important change that could be made for the IJN would be a rewrite of the Japanese constitution which effectively established the army and navy as rival political parties, forcing both of them to maximize tensions with a foreign power in order to maximize their apparent importance to national survival. The IJN had to increase friction with the US lest it seem less important than the IJA.
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Re: How would you improve the IJN?

Post by RF »

How do you improve the IJN? Where does one start?

Unless there is an avenue for Japan to win WW2, any improvement to the IJN cannot do the Japs any good. So the question becomes wider - how could Japan win WW2? Once that is determined, then one can postulate improving the IJN.
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Re: How would you improve the IJN?

Post by lwd »

I disagree. You could at least in theory come up with changes for the IJN which would make it more of a challenge for either the US or the UK. A win is hardly likely if it goes to war with both but if the design is to have a force that can take on one of them some time in the 40s then it's possible. The ongoing war in China is going to be a major problem however as it will be a serious contender for any funds.
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RF
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Re: How would you improve the IJN?

Post by RF »

lwd wrote:I disagree. You could at least in theory come up with changes for the IJN which would make it more of a challenge for either the US or the UK. A win is hardly likely if it goes to war with both but if the design is to have a force that can take on one of them some time in the 40s then it's possible. The ongoing war in China is going to be a major problem however as it will be a serious contender for any funds.
Making it more of a challenge for the US or UK doesn't do anything for the Japs if they cannot win. You just end up with a bloodier war.

You then move to my line of thinking by suggesting a force to take on one enemy at a time in the 1940's and that has to be the key. What it would take is close co-operation with Germany, Germany to conquer Britain and then for Hitler to agree with the Japs that the conquest of the USA will have to take priority over the USSR. That could be feasible to a 1941 timescale if there was no war in China. The latter would reduce tensions in the Far East, no US sanctions against Japan. But the IJN would need at least 14 frontline carriers (and carriers with armoured decks), far more aircraft and pilots, an aircraft development programme to produce the next generation of aircraft to replace the Zero.
The attack on PH would require eight carriers and three attack waves. At least half the US Pacific carrier force would have to be there. And the attack must be followed up by full scale invasion of Hawaii. This means at least 150,000 troops including an armoured division up to German Panzer standards. Hawaii would then be the Japanese base to control the Pacific, to launch attacks on the US West coast and the Panama Canal. Germany would have to threaten the US East coast.
However even this would allow the Japs only three years of domination before the US produces enough military hardware and trained men to grind the Japs down. That three years would be the timespan for Germany and Japan to produce the atomic bomb first. That is the only way the Axis can win against the US.

So it boils down to a lot more than simply improving the IJN.
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Re: How would you improve the IJN?

Post by 19kilo »

Maybe.....instead of the Yamatos a couple more Shokakus?
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Re: How would you improve the IJN?

Post by Tiornu »

By the way, there is a book in print called Japanese Military Strategy in the Pacific War by Wood. He examines this exact issue and offers ways in which the Japanese might have maximized their resistance to the Americans. There are some problems with the argument, but it's still interesting. I believe I posted a review at Amazon.
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Re: How would you improve the IJN?

Post by Djoser »

RF wrote: Making it more of a challenge for the US or UK doesn't do anything for the Japs if they cannot win. You just end up with a bloodier war.

You then move to my line of thinking by suggesting a force to take on one enemy at a time in the 1940's and that has to be the key...However even this would allow the Japs only three years of domination before the US produces enough military hardware and trained men to grind the Japs down. That three years would be the timespan for Germany and Japan to produce the atomic bomb first. That is the only way the Axis can win against the US.

So it boils down to a lot more than simply improving the IJN.
Agreed. And an excellent post again from you. But again, as an entertaining mental exercise, not such a bad thing to propose a few changes that could have enabled the IJN to do better than they did historically.
Tiornu wrote:By the way, there is a book in print called Japanese Military Strategy in the Pacific War by Wood. He examines this exact issue and offers ways in which the Japanese might have maximized their resistance to the Americans. There are some problems with the argument, but it's still interesting. I believe I posted a review at Amazon.
Cool, I will go look for it! The book and your review both.
19kilo wrote:Maybe.....instead of the Yamatos a couple more Shokakus?
Absolutely! But they would also have had to loosen up the rigorous, demanding training procedure for pilots, in order to have the striking force to fly off those extra carriers.
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Re: How would you improve the IJN?

Post by lwd »

RF wrote:
lwd wrote:I disagree. You could at least in theory come up with changes for the IJN which would make it more of a challenge for either the US or the UK. A win is hardly likely if it goes to war with both but if the design is to have a force that can take on one of them some time in the 40s then it's possible. The ongoing war in China is going to be a major problem however as it will be a serious contender for any funds.
Making it more of a challenge for the US or UK doesn't do anything for the Japs if they cannot win. You just end up with a bloodier war.
But the question isn't what can you do to make a Japanese win probable. It's "How would you improve the IJN". I agree that there is little way of improving it enough to result in them winning WWII. That doesn't mean that they can't be improved however.
You then move to my line of thinking by suggesting a force to take on one enemy at a time in the 1940's and that has to be the key. What it would take is close co-operation with Germany, Germany to conquer Britain and then for Hitler to agree with the Japs that the conquest of the USA will have to take priority over the USSR.
This too me is more than improving the IJN it's improving or at least changing national strategies. My point in suggesting a time frame an opponent was to provide a possible yard stick for evaluationg whether or not there had been a improvement. Often improvements during one time frame can only come at the cost of performance during another time frame or increased performance in one area means a decrease in another.
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RF
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Re: How would you improve the IJN?

Post by RF »

My basic issue lwd is that you would need to alter the strategy to improve the IJN substantially. I would read the question as implying ''improvement'' as to meaning ''winning chances''. Tinkering here and there may improve the Japanese record, but the result is the same......
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Re: How would you improve the IJN?

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RF wrote:My basic issue lwd is that you would need to alter the strategy to improve the IJN substantially. I would read the question as implying ''improvement'' as to meaning ''winning chances''. Tinkering here and there may improve the Japanese record, but the result is the same......
I took "improvement" to mean what would produce a more capable IJN focusing primarily on hardware although doctrine and training issues especially those that would fit with the time wouldn't be out of place. Winning the war requires modifications of political strategy and perhaps culture well beyond naval matters.
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Re: How would you improve the IJN?

Post by RF »

I think we can agree on that lwd.
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Re: How would you improve the IJN?

Post by captaincvfd »

For a country that was completely reliant on imports to have ignored its ASW Forces and its Merchant fleet was a sure road to failure.
Its Hard to train pilots when you have no steel to build planes and no fuel to fly the ones you have. so no matter what else they tried it would have been doomed to Fail.
Just the weight of the 2 Supper battleships converted to escorts would have more then doubled there wartime production of Destroyers and escorts.
Japanese Industry did produce Planes that when flown with good fuel were nearly a match for US aircraft but with the lack of Fuel to train and the lower octane on what they had, combined with not being able to produce more then a few hundred top of the line late model fighters they had no chance.
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Re: How would you improve the IJN?

Post by RF »

You are absolutely right. The merchant fleet had a low status in Japan - not very warrior like. And planes were hand built not mass produced..... and no long term planning for a long war either.
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